The Diary of Anne Frank - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Diary of Anne Frank or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Diary of Anne Frank

[cassandra]

The following prologue is featured at the beginning of this movie: "The filming of scenes at the house where Anne Frank wrote her diary was made possible through the cooperation of the City of Amsterdam."

[jessie]

Prior to filming the Hanukkah scene, Shelley Winters gave Millie Perkins a glass of Scotch to calm her nerves. The scene had to be reshot because Millie was drunk.

[kylie]

The DVD and Blu-ray released on June 16, 2009, by 20th Century-Fox not only commemorates the film's 50th anniversary, but also what would have been Anne Frank's 80th birthday. She was born on June 12, 1929.

[steve]

Albert Dussell's pseudonymous surname means "nitwit" in German, which is ironic since he is portrayed by Ed Wynn, an actor nicknamed "The Perfect Fool". Charlotte Kaletta, who posthumously married Fritz Pfeffer, on whom the character of Mr. Dussell is pseudonymously based, objected to her husband being portrayed as ignorant of Jewish traditions, when by contrast, Pfeffer was a master of Hebrew and far from being an unbeliever. She severed her connections with Otto Frank and Miep Gies, and in regards to her memories of him, she refused requests to be interviewed.

[caroline]

George Stevens chose to film in black and white as he believed it would heighten the drama. He also deliberately shot some scenes in near darkness, forcing the viewer to really concentrate on the details.

[frances]

Miep Gies, played by Dodie Heath, died on January 11, 2010, at the age of 100. Gies was the last friend of the Frank family who helped hide them, provided them with food and news, and who found Anne Frank's diary.

[terry]

20th Century-Fox was filming most of its movies in the extra-large dimensions of CinemaScope in order to lure patrons out of their homes and away from their small televisions. However, George Stevens felt that the wide spectrum of CinemaScope took away from the claustrophobic feel that being confined in an attic for two years would produce. Therefore, in order to achieve the effect that he desired without defying the order to film in CinemaScope, the director added columns on each side of the set, supposedly to be the beams that were supporting the attic but actually to narrow the width of the screen, thus producing the stifling feel he originally intended.

[claude]

The only film in which Shelley Winters gives an acting Oscar winning performance in a Best Picture nominee.

[bessie]

Average Shot Length (ASL) = 9 seconds

[jim]

Millie Perkins, cast as the younger Anne, is actually older than both Diane Baker, who plays Margot and Richard Beymer, who plays Peter.

[chris]

The original Broadway production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett opened at the Cort Theater on October 5, 1955, ran for 717 performances and won the 1956 Tony Award for the Best Play, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the same year. Joseph Schildkraut, Gusti Huber and Lou Jacobi recreated their stage roles--respectively Otto Frank, Edith Frank, and Mr. Van Daan--in the movie version for which Goodrich and Hackett also wrote the screenplay. Susan Strasberg, who had played Anne on stage, and was nominated for 1956 Tony Award for Actress in a Drama, turned down the chance to play her on film, so Millie Perkins took over the role.

[harry]

Shelley Winters donated the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award she won for the role of Mrs. Van Daan to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, after promising Otto Frank that she would do so if she were to win the award. It remains on permanent display in the museum to this day.

[camila]

The second of three George Stevens films in which Shelley Winters starred. The others are A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). She received an Oscar nomination for her performance in the former, and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for this film.

[ray]

In 1942 Hannukah begins on December 7, and some characters compare it to St. Nicholas. This is because Dutch St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas, inspiration for Santa Claus) has his day on December 6. This is unlike the rest of the world, which reassigns him to December 25 for convenient conflation with the Birth of Christ commemoration.

[ava]

In total, George Stevens spent four years working on the film.

[ava]

Film debut of Diane Baker.